Twilight 25 Round 6 Challenge
by loss4words
Summary: Drabbles ranging in characters and situations.  Twilight 25 Round 6 Participant.
1. Prompt 7

The Twilight Twenty-Five

thetwilight25[dot]com

Prompt: #7 - Cottage

Pen Name: loss4words

Pairing/Main Character(s):

Rating: M for violent theme

Photo prompts can be viewed here:

thetwilight25[dot]com/round-six/prompts

Prompt 7: Cottage

She walked around the tiny space, and although there was a fire glowing along the far wall, the place felt cold. She walked along the wall, taking small glimpses of the few framed photographs he had chosen to decorate with. She fingered the dust on the shelf, dragging her long index finger through it and making a trail - until she reached the last photograph. 

A little whimper escaped her throat as she took stock of what she was looking at.

She whirled around and was immediately frozen in place by Edward's piercing eyes.

"Come home, Bella?" 

His voice was strangled, and he looked as though he was becoming translucent.

Had he been in the small room when she entered? She was sure he wasn't. He must have come in quietly, and being so absorbed in what she was witnessing, she hadn't noticed.

His tall build leaned against the door frame, appearing to be holding him up. Maybe it was. His eyes looked vacant, and the thought made her throat tighten up. She suddenly felt like she could vomit.

Edward fell apart in front of her, sliding to the floor of the cottage and making small, strangled sobs. Bella was locked in place but for a moment. She couldn't not go to him - this man that she had loved her entire life. She would tell him everything, tell him that the time they were apart was the worst of her life, that when she didn't share the same air from the same room as him, it was hard for her to breathe.

She ran to him, taking only a mere second with the sparse furniture and so-small room. She knelt on the floor and placed a hand on his shoulder. A strangled, painful noise came from him, which made Bella simply burn with pain in the center of her chest.

"Please. Please look at me," she begged him, trying to pry his head from between his knees.

He shook it, back and forth. "I can't. I'm bad, Bella. So bad for you."

"No, Edward. Not bad. Not even close. You are the most important thing to me. Please, Edward. _Look_ at me!" Her request came out as a demand, but Edward noticed the pleading tone that was hidden beneath the slight anger.

Finally, he raised his head, though slowly. Without really even taking a moment to look at her, he moved over and collapsed into her lap, planting his face toward her abdomen. His body shook with both sadness, and relief. The thoughts inside of his head ate through him. How could he be good for her? How could he know that he wouldn't lose control again, because the last time it happened, she witnessed him do something horrific. He couldn't forgive himself, so how could she? He knew she couldn't, which was why he'd run, to protect her, and to shield himself from the fact that she could never look at him the same way again. Not after _that._

Bella felt like her heart was ripping to shreds. This man, this amazing man that she had always loved, was nothing but a shell now. Where once had been a young, happy kid that had grown into a lanky, awkward teenager, and then an incredibly handsome man, was now but a hallow mirror image. He was sorely underweight, he looked as though he hadn't slept in weeks, and probably hadn't, and well, he stunk.

She shooshed him and feathered his now-long hair back away from his face as he continued to sob, although softer now, into her tummy.

She hated that it had come to this. She had tried her hardest those six months ago for him to see that it wasn't his fault. He was trying to protect her, _did_ protect her, but what started as a small mugging by a kid in a bad part of Chicago, quickly turned deadly.

The boy couldn't have been more than thirteen years old, and it was obvious that he was already strung out on his drug of choice, but Edward had tried to reason with him. He had even convinced him to go have a good meal with them, but the boy turned furious and pulled out a gun. From then it was chaos, and a shot was fired from the ground where the man and boy-child scuffled. Then, silence.

When the boy died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital that Edward worked at, their life - the good life that they'd had up until that point, simply stopped. Edward put on a facade, but when he couldn't complete a simple appendectomy, he crumbled. Crumbled, then ran away.

Bella knew where he'd gone of course. They'd bought the little cottage when Edward first took the position at the hospital, and they found out that it wasn't safe for Bella to have children. They'd decided that they were content without children, and if they changed their mind later, they could adopt.

But Bella couldn't talk him into coming home. After a while, he disconnected his phone, and when she began to take the long, eight hour drives to the cottage to see him, he began disappearing into the forest, for sometimes days at a time.

It had been three and a half months since she'd last driven to the cottage. The winters were harsh and she knew that it wasn't safe for her to drive, so she'd had to wait until spring had arrived.

She finally returned, was finally able to, and instead of hiding from her, he showed her exactly what she thought she'd see. He was a mess. But she was going to fix it. He had to see, that he was protecting her. _Them_.

She was beginning to get stiff as she sat on the floor, and her tailbone was pushed down hard on the concrete floor with Edward's added weight in her lap.

She wiggled a little, trying to move so she'd gain feeling back in her toes. Edward suddenly noticed that something was _off._ Something about the feel of Bella was different. He knew that he himself was jagged, and that he'd lost weight, but she couldn't feel quite that plush to him simply because he'd lost a bit of weight.

With his head still in her lap, he began to take stock of her. He started at her feet, checking her over to make sure that she was as he'd left her. Her legs curled under her and to the side as she sat so close to him, under him, on the floor. Her ankles were still chicken leg skinny, but her calves looked maybe just a little larger. As his eyes swept higher, he saw that her thighs were also just a little larger, but not by much. But then he saw it. He saw _her_.

Edward abruptly sat up, throwing his back against the opposite door jamb of Bella, staring not at her face, but at her round tummy. She couldn't be. They couldn't.

He mentally counted back the months. He knew she would never cheat on him. But how?

"I was pregnant at the time of the accident, but didn't know. When they took us all to the hospital, they wanted to check me out because I had blood on me. I threw up a couple of times but told them it was nerves, because I thought it was, but they did a pregnancy test anyway. And I was going to tell you, but you were never home, and when you were, you locked yourself away from me."

He wanted to know how far, but he couldn't articulate the words. He finally looked up at her face then. Her glorious, face, a face that made him feel like he was finally home. There was an unmistakable twinkle in here eye.

"I'm eight months along, and it's a little boy."

Edward was off his butt and on his feet in an instant. He scooped her up off the floor and walked them over to the small, faded couch in front of the fireplace, and plopped them down on the couch. He held his wife, his soul mate, and their unborn child, and finally, cried with happiness.


	2. Prompt 16

The Twilight Twenty-Five

thetwilight25[dot]com

Prompt: #16 – Italian Restaurant

Pen Name: loss4words

Pairing/Main Character(s): Rosalie

Rating: M for language

Photo prompts can be viewed here:

thetwilight25[dot]com/round-six/prompts

Prompt 16: Italian Restaurant

He watched her - the girl with the bird, that is. He felt this pull to her. He'd seen her everyday in the same place for the last two and a half weeks.

It happened by accident. He'd caught a taxi that had taken a wrong turn. He needed to get over to East 5th, but instead, the cabbie had taken a left and he'd ended up over on Turlington - eight city blocks away from where he needed to be. And yeah, he hadn't been paying attention, so he didn't notice until the cab was stopped. He had a deadline.

He angrily threw the money at the cabbie, although he shouldn't have had to pay for the shit ride, and began hiking it back in the direction that he'd come from. Three blocks later, he had a blister. Damn new shoes.

He looked around for a place to sit, but there wasn't one, at least not nearby. He pulled up a map on his phone and began to walk west a little bit, even though it was out of his way, but he was already late, so there was no point in rushing or even attempting to make it on time.

As he walked to his new destination, he tapped out a quick text to say he couldn't make it, and they'd have to reschedule for later in the week.

A few minutes later he found himself at the opening of a park. It was slow this time of day, so there were only a few people scattered around the large fountain that greeted the park dwellers.

There were grassy areas where some lazed about on blankets reading books or having picnics, but he didn't want that. He needed a place to sit, so he quickly moved to a bench just ten feet from the fountain.

He sat down quickly, peeling his sock from his foot to check out the mess he was sure he had on the back of his heel. It wasn't yet bleeding, but it had already blistered and ripped open. There was nothing much else to do but to remove the other sock and shoe. He grumbled to himself. He must look a fool. Three thousand dollar suit, briefcase, and barefoot. Fuck it. He wasn't putting those bastard shoes back on. He'd hail another cab, or call for his sister to pick him up.

He must have been loud enough to hear in his grumblings, because when he looked up, a girl with a bird was watching him. She quickly looked away, but not fast enough for his curiosity to not get the best of him.

She sat on the edge that surrounded the fountain, where a few others were also spaced out. Beside her, was a small, antique birdcage with the door hanging open. A small, but plump bird sat inside, and the woman looked at it expectantly. He could see her lips moving as she spoke to the bird, but he could not hear a word she said.

He sat there for a length of time, not realizing that it was beginning to get dark. The entire time, he watched the woman. For a while he pretended to be working on his phone, then, pulled out files from his briefcase to appear focused. The last thing he was focused on was work. The only thing on his mind, was the girl with the bird.

But why?

When the sky began to grow dark in the evening sky, he watched her unwrap something from around her finger, and place it in her pocket. She shut the door of the birdcage, picked it up, and walked through the entrance of the park, not once giving him a glance. Some young idiot said something to her on her way out and in return, she gave him an icy glare. The boy blanched.

He could see she had an icy exterior, but inside, he thought there was a flame that melted her down to sweetness. He wanted to find out how to see more of it.

So it was now his thing. The park. Everyday. Even if it was completely out of the way of work and home. And she was always there, with the bird and the birdcage.

After the first couple of days, he moved to a different bench to get a better glimpse of her. He knew she was gorgeous, but all he had ever seen was her profile. Her hair would sometimes look white, if the sun was bright and the sky cloudless, but there were other days that it appeared more of a honey color. It was long, and on windy days, whisped around her head like cornsilk in the summer breeze.

He didn't care if she noticed him after the beginning of the second week, so it was then, that he finally sat the closest to her. She kept her head down, focusing on the bird, but every once in a while, she looked up. She knew he was there, felt his presence, but went back to the bird.

Things changed that first day of the second week. Whereas before, he had not been able to see what she was doing, he now had a perfect view.

Upon her arrival, because he now arrived before she did, she sat down, opened the door to the birdcage, and waited. After several minutes of nothing, she sighed, her shoulders lifting and falling in defeat, and then reached into the right pocket of the charcoal grey hoodie she wore everyday. From it, she pulled a red thread - one you'd use to mend a button fallen off a coat. With the string, she wrapped it several times on her index finger, and with the tail, laid it upon the concrete fountain bench.

It was the first time he'd seen the bird move so much, but he watched as it hopped down from its perch inside, and flitted its wings to get outside. Bouncing over to the string without much effort from its wings, it plucked up the string in its beak, then bounced back inside of the cage.

He was confused by what he was watching, and further confused by the woman's reaction. While he still didn't have a decent view of her face, he could still see the defeat by the bird's reaction in the way she carried her body.

And finally, he could no longer take it. The more he watched her, the more he itched to have some type of real interaction with her. Four days since he'd first sat across from her, he finally decided to sit at the fountain. Not directly beside her, but to her left by just a few feet. But this angle is not satisfactory, as he cannot see any of her actions.

She speaks to the bird every once in a while, but it is soft words, and he is unable to make out what she is saying. He finally stands, having summoned the courage, and goes to stand in front of her. She scowls, looking up at him with the sun in her eyes, so he crouches down, and she follows his figure.

This is the first time he sees it, the scar that takes up residence on her high cheekbone on the left side of her face. It does nothing to hide her beauty. If anything, it magnetizes it by announcing the fact that she is a survivor of some kind.

He opens his mouth to speak, but she begins telling him what is going on without needing any kind of prompt from him.

"This stupid bird flew into my apartment two months ago and hurt itself, so I mended its wing. I even had it checked out by a veterinarian. There is no reason that this bird cannot fly. It can fly. But it refuses too. I do not know what to do." She says it quickly, and he has to pay deep attention to the way her lips move, as her thick French accent curls her words in ways that he's not used to.

He points to the string, noticing that she has the other end of it, the end the bird doesn't hold, is wrapped several times around her index finger, and in a soft tone, asks, "Why do you have that wrapped around your finger? What is the string for?"

"Oh, the girl at the clinic told me to do it. She said it would help the bird decide when it was ready to fly. It isn't working," she explains.

He points to her the thread around her finger. "May I?"

She keeps her hand in place, but gives him a small nod.

With gentle hands, he unwraps the thread from her finger, but before he puts it down, he asks, "Are you ready for the bird to fly away?"

She looks in his eyes then, because how could he know that she had been asking herself the same thing nearly every day? She quickly looks away before she can allow this stranger to see any emotion in her eyes, and looks at the bird. The bird wants to be free. She knows it. She looks back at him, and nods. She watches his hand as he places the thread on the bench, then looks at the bird. It gives a small chirp and twists its head. Seconds later, it flees the cage and takes to the sky.

The woman gasps. "How did you know to do that?"

He shrugs. The bird was here because you needed it to be. You let it go because you were ready, so it was ready."

"But it was a wild bird. It should have tried to flee at its first chance!" she exclaimed.

Again, he shrugged. "Bird with an old soul?"

At that she laughed, and he swore it was the best thing he'd ever heard.

"I think I owe you a drink after that. Especially since you've been trying to help me with my problem for almost three weeks now." She announced.

He blushed a little. "You noticed."

As they headed for the park exit, she whispered, "I notice all things. How is your heel, by the way?"

This time it was his turn to laugh.

They crossed the busy street and he opened the door to a little Italian restaurant where she had led him to for a drink. Never in his life would he have thought to say no.

She climbed onto a barstool, and after he was situated, she offered him her hand. "My name is Rosalie. It is a pleasure to meet your acquaintance."

"I'm Emmett. And the pleasure belongs to me."


	3. Prompt 25

The Twilight Twenty-Five

thetwilight25[dot]com

Prompt: #25 – Tent

Pen Name: loss4words

Pairing/Main Character(s): Bella

**RATING: NC17 for insinuated rape and murder, visual descriptions**

Photo prompts can be viewed here:

thetwilight25[dot]com/round-six/prompts

**Prompt: Tent WARNING! DARK**  
><strong>RATING: NC17 for insinuated rape and murder, disturbing visual descriptions<strong>

She'd lost all sense of direction some time ago. She walked, and walked. She stayed on the same bath, on the same dirt path through the forest that she was unfamiliar with. Something was clawing deep inside of her. She'd forgotten something. There was something very important that she couldn't remember.

She remembered her name, she remembered her age, and she remembered that she'd been taking her friend that was visiting from afar to a place that the woman had want to see. Where had that been again? Where was she, and how had she come to stumbling through a forest in a light drizzle?

Unaware of anything but the conflicting thoughts in her head, she continued on the path in the forest. Surely there would be someone who could tell her where she was, maybe even what she was doing there. Or there would be a town. There had to be a town nearby. She thought she remembered a small town when she'd driven up this way with Carmen.

_The car was full of laughter. "Oh my God. Play that song again. I can't get enough of it!" Carmen clutched at her stomach in discomfort from laughing. _

_As she drove the small red car they'd rented in some random small town, she moved to punch the button to replay the song. Instead, a wrong button was pushed, and a song fell over their ears - giving pause to both. It wasn't the fun, crazy, upbeat song they'd been listening too and giggling over. Instead, the car filled with lilting piano, and the voice of a man. It wasn't singing they heard pouring out of the speakers, it was the sound of a soul crying out, announcing itself to the world._

_The song ended too quickly. "I need to hear that again," the driver proclaimed. She'd felt a sense of _something_ come over her as she listened to the song. What that something was, she couldn't pinpoint, but she had to admit that she was left feeling a sort of melancholy._

_There was momentary silence in the car until Carmen had pulled the song up again on her phone. She attached it to a cord, and the sound once again filled the car, transporting both girls to somewhere else._

What was that? What was that memory? She began to run along the path. Something was settling over her and it felt a little bit like dread. She'd been with someone. She remembered her face, and the sound of her voice, and that she was so important to her, but she couldn't remember her name or where she'd gone.

She pushed her body hard, her legs hurt, but she kept moving them. Her mind strayed from the narrow footpath in front of her and she heard a twig snap somewhere. Her footing caught on a tree root protruding from the ground, sending her soaring and landing on her belly a couple of feet ahead. Her chin hits the hard path, resulting in her biting through her bottom lip. She whimpers and slowly rolls onto her side. Wiggling her toes, then fingers, she moves her legs and arms. Nothing broken, but definitely sore.

She tastes blood in her mouth and it sickens her stomach. She stands up slowly, not noticing the bloody scrape on her knee, and continues to walk along the path.

_"Ezzie said that there is this place about 150 miles from here. He said that the water from the glacier is so so clear and clean, but then a little bit further up, there are these hot springs, so you go from the cool glacier lake, over to the hot springs!"_

_"So what you're saying is that we will probably be gone for more than just the day, since we have other plans as well?"_

_Carmen drummed her fingers on her thigh, staring out the passenger window. "Well, maybe we could go up to the springs and lake first, then do the other stuff after? He made it sound so so amazing. I want to see it, B. Is that okay? I mean, I don't have much time visiting, so I want to see as much as I can and I just can't say no to this!"_

They'd seen the water. She remembered that part. Well, no. She remembered the lake that was fed from a glacier. Remembered the feel of the cold water as it lapped at her ankles. Her friend wanted her to go all the way in, and she was already numb ankle down just from being in the water for a minute. Her friend was crazy spontaneous, and she loved it.

She was not going into the lake!

She went into the lake, because it was for her dear friend.

_They screamed and giggled and it was so cold. They ran out only seconds after being fully submerged, and followed the signs that pointed them in the direction of the hot springs._

_By the time they got there, both girls were freezing cold, and immediately plunged themselves into the water._

_"I hate you for making me do that. Oh my God that sucked!"_

_"You do not hate me, and admit it, you had a blast!" Carmen called her out on her lie. Her grin was larger than life, even if her lips were still slightly blue-ish._

_The two women splashed each other and swam around in the small hole they'd jumped into. After a while they calmed, and discussed the rest of their day. _

_Feeling on the prune-ish side, they decided they'd better head back toward the car, and as Carmen climbed out first, a body submerged through the tree line just a few feet away._

Her feet halted as the memory hit her square in the chest. She doubled over and heaved - whatever she'd eaten for breakfast that morning - completely evacuated.

There had been someone in the forest, at the hot springs. She righted herself and turned in a full circle. She needed to go back, but she didn't know where she'd come from. And if she did go back, what would she go back to?

There was something in her brain that was so so close to her memory. It was like there was something behind a closed and locked door in her head, and it wanted out. It was scratching at the door, thinning out a spot so it could try to seep through, but the door was so thick.

She looked at the ground, at the vomit, and then at her shoeless feet. The observation startled her, and she began to run again. Her sides twisted in pain, but she couldn't stop. She knew she had to keep going, because something had happened, something bad, and she could hear this voice in her head, but it wasn't her own voice.

That voice that had told her to **RUN**. Whose voice had that been?

Real panic overtook her then, and she began to sprint faster then she had ever in her life. She pushed herself, but after just a little while, she could go no further. She slowed, and then fell to the ground. Strangled sobs came out of her, but she didn't recognize them as her own. She didn't recognize anything.

_They quickly climbed out of the hot pool, clambering for their shoes, to back away from the man and put a little bit of distance between them. _

_Something was _off _about him. Bella couldn't put her finger on it, but Carmen had a knowing look in her eyes, like she recognized what kind of man stood before them, and the knowledge of that scared Bella to death. _

_Another man emerged from the trees then, and Bella knew that they were in bad trouble. She reached out her hand, grabbing onto Carmen's and the two girls turned and ran. _

_They didn't make it far, and before she could comprehend any of it, she'd been pushed down to the ground, held down by the first man out of the woods. The second hovered over Carmen, and Bella knew what was coming then, but what would come after, she never expected. _

_Bella locked eyes with Carmen, as the unspeakable, unthinkable things were done to her, and Bella knew it was her turn next, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. _

_But then something else happened, something she hadn't been expecting. _

_A knife was pulled out of a boot, and things changed from very bad - to horrifying._

_And still, she held Carmen's gaze, because she could see in her eyes, that the part of Carmen that _made _her, that was her _essence_, had gone._

_And then her own captor was on her, and ripping away her protection. With no fight from Carmen left, the other man joined in, and Bella felt her own self begin to float away. _

_He still had the knife in his hand, and Bella did her best to fight them off with her hands, but it was of no use. The blade was dropped, and she somehow slid her hand over it. Realizing what it was without looking, she quickly palmed it. Fist around the base, and blade up, she punched her arm up above her head. The blade sliced through the soft under part of the chin of the second man._

_She heard a gurgling noise. _

_There was a shriek, and then the pressure was gone._

_Bella was off her feet and running in an instant._

It was the first time she actually noticed the blood. And if she played it out in her head differently, the blood was never really there. A figment of her imagination.

She could try that on in her head. She did, but it didn't work. Her mind, now that it had opened up completely, refused to quit replaying the look on Carmen's face. Bella could still see her eyes in her mind, and how they went from terrified...to vacant, and that was before the knife was used on her.

Things began to swirl together in Bella's head. She had to seriously contemplate whether any of that had actually happened, because surely, it couldn't happen to her. Nothing like that could ever happen to her.

No, she was out in the middle of the woods, hiking, she decided. And the truth began to slip away, or had it ever happened at all?

She decided to try on a smile and see if she could carry it, see if she could feel it.

There were small beams of sunlight filtering through the tops of the trees, and Bella came to a small opening. It was only large enough for a few tents, so she knew that she must be getting closer to some sort of civilization.

She smiled as she walked, and told herself that she felt no pain. In her head, the meaning behind the words she thought ceased to exist, and that was when she forgot her name.

She forgot she needed a name, or ever had a name. There was a place in her that forgot she existed at all. She was a walking zombie. She had no name, no place, no memory, no self.

She was nothing.

Her steps became stumbles, and she fell nearly every other one. He saw her as he slowly clambered out of his tent, after drinking far too much the night before and sleeping it off well into the day.

His first though was that perhaps he was still dreaming, but as he stepped on a downed pinecone, he winced in pain and bit his tongue so he wouldn't disturb her.

Something was terribly wrong with her. She looked like she was the walking dead. Her long hair was a mangled mess, and most of her clothes had been ripped away from her body. He could see blood stains on the outside of her leg and side facing him.

Edward grew panicked, reached inside of the tent, and kicked his brother awake.

"Dude, get the fuck out here now," he spat out in a whisper.

He had a very bad feeling in his stomach.

He continued to watch her as she stumbled closer and closer to the water. She didn't even seem to notice that she was walking toward it, and he wondered if she would once she was even in it.

He began to move toward her then, and it wasn't until she was at the water's edge, that she seemed to notice.

When she stopped along the shore, he stopped too, just twenty feet behind her. She didn't turn quickly, like he thought she would, but instead, turned in a very slow half circle, her head to the ground.

She realized she had a knife in her hand. How had it gotten there, and where'd it come from.

She looked up, then saw a man standing before her.

Her mind told her that one thing would save her, and only one. The word that formed was 'DIE.'

And in her head there was only that one option. She knew what to do with the knife in her hand, because it was obviously there for a reason, and so she used it.

And the man ran at her screaming no, but he was too late, as she crumbled into the shallow water.


End file.
